‘Use my kitchen.’
I almost laugh at the absurdity of it. ‘Oh yeah, right. Very funny.’
‘Oh, yeah, right,’ he repeats pointedly, putting an emphasis on the sentence to let me know he’s not joking. ‘I have a massive kitchen and I bake often so there’s a ton of ingredients in. I only live a short drive away. You’re more than welcome to come over after work. If you want help, I can help. If you don’t, I can stay out of the way. It’s no problem.’
‘I’m sure your girlfriend will love that.’
‘If you wanted to know my relationship status, you could have just asked.’
‘I don’t—’ I start, but he cuts me off before I can protest that it really wasn’t about that.
‘You’ll be pleased to know I’m single. Can you imagine anyone being daft enough to put up with me for long?’ He says it in his up-tempo Hatter voice, but there’s a waver in it and a hint of sadness behind his words. ‘I live alone. You’re more than welcome to use my kitchen as often as you need. And don’t worry, I have a fire extinguisher. Between the two of us, we’ll have a better chance of monitoring for all flame-related activity.’
‘Flame-related activity’ makes me burst out laughing and he grins that wide Hatter grin again. ‘So that’s a yes, then. Let me give you directions.’
He holds his hand out for my phone, and I get a little shiver when our fingers brush as I give it to him. I watch him typing something and wonder just how wrong I’ve got this man. Just like last night, when he took those hats off, I think he let me see a bit of who he is when he’s not playing a character. And it was someone quite different. Someone I actually quite like.
7
I’ve never been to the affluent part of Herefordshire before. It’s not far from Ever After Street and the surrounding villages, but as my old car clunks along the smooth road that’s not filled with potholes, I have a feeling that someone is about to pull me over and politely point out a ‘no peasants allowed’ sign. This is a seriously nice neighbourhood. Houses seem to have a minimum of eight bedrooms, pretty flowerbeds, neat lawns, and trimmed hedges. At least one motorhome parked outside massive double-garages. Some even have fountains in their driveways. Fountains, for goodness’ sake. Have I taken a wrong turn? Surely Bram doesn’t live somewhere like this? The trees are swathed in masses of white and pink spring blossom and neatly pruned into wine glass shapes. Who the heck worries about what shape a tree is in?
I pull over at the gate of a large house and double-check the instructions he put in my phone. The house in front of me is set so far back in the grounds that it looks quite small from this distance. This cannot be Bram’s house. It’s got to be a joke.
On one of the imposing gateposts, there’s a security camera with a screen, showing my car in the gateway and my face when I get out and peer at it, but while I’m still trying to figure out which button I need to press on the intercom, it buzzes and the iron gates slide open to let me in.
‘Thanks,’ I say to the screen and get back in the car and drive through, and they close automatically behind me.
It feels more like driving into a country park than a house. The gravel driveway is bordered by freshly cut grass on either side and there’s not a weed in sight. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a lawn without dandelions and buttercups popping up all over it. There are trees dotted around covered in fresh green leaves that have sprung open for spring and the ever-present fizz of blossom.
I’m driving painstakingly slowly, leaning forwards so I can see the mansion as it comes into view. Maybe it’s not exactly a mansion. There’s probably some rule about how many rooms a house has to have to qualify for mansion status, and this probably just misses out, but it’s a very nice house.
There’s the most beautiful magnolia tree I’ve ever seen in the middle of the courtyard, its branches are weighed down with two-tone magenta pink flowers and they extend over the neat gravel area where there’s a car parked.
Bram’s car? It’s completely out of place with this manor of a house – a dinged-up old blue thing that makes mine look modern when I stop next to it, parking underneath the branches of the magnolia tree, the scent of blossom strong in the air. Sandy-coloured gravel crunches under my feet as I grab my bag of ingredients and swing my legs out of the car, wishing I’d worn something a bit more formal than the jeans and oversized T-shirt I changed into after work.
There’s a bumper sticker on the back of the car that’s got a silhouette of the White Rabbit with his trumpet and the Alice in Wonderland quote – ‘Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.’ Definitely Bram’s car then.
I’m admiring the stone planters of colour-coordinated pastel tulips when the front door opens to reveal… a totally different person.
‘Good lord, I really am in the wrong place,’ I say as I crunch across the gravel towards the steps leading up to the door. Because the man who has answered it is so far removed from the Mad Hatter that I genuinely do have to squint and discreetly double-check that it’s actually Bram and not a brother or cousin or something.
He’s wearing black jogging bottoms and nothing but white socks on his feet. A plain grey marl T-shirt, no hat in sight, and no eyeliner. He’s still got his earrings in, and instead of sticking out in a thousand directions and spiked with product, his blue hair is soft-looking and close to his head, the ends starting to turn wavy where it’s still drying after being washed.
‘’ello,’ he says in that high-pitched nasally voice that I’d recognise anywhere.
‘You look so different,’ I say in response, because it’s really thrown me. At work, I know Bram is playing a role, but I’d never considered what he might look like at other times. ‘You are full of surprises.’
‘Thought I was full of something a lot more unpleasant than three-thousand-year-old honey.’
‘Oh, you are.’ I reach the top of the steps and look up into his gentle dark eyes. ‘But you’ve got some surprises in there too.’
He smiles, a soft smile that’s nothing like his megawatt Hatter grin, and something flutters inside me so I look away quickly and continue admiring the sweeping gardens. ‘I feel like I should have brought something. Like champagne and caviar, or a yacht or something.’
He laughs. ‘Terrible choices. I’m vegetarian and I don’t drink. And a yacht would never have fitted in your car.’
‘Me too! And me neither!’ I say, surprised we have that much in common. ‘I’ve been a vegetarian for years, and I can’t really afford to drink these days, so it feels better to make it a choice. Besides, I’m old now, the thought of getting rat-arsed and then spending all day nursing a hangover loses its appeal by your mid-twenties, I think.’
‘I’m weird enough without being drunk. And I’m really boring and spend most evenings eating too much cake and dozing off in front of the TV. I hate the vulnerability of being drunk and I morally object to doing things you’re “supposed” to do just to fit in.’
Why have I never noticed what a cracking outlook he’s got before? A teetotal vegetarian with eyeliner, two pierced ears, blue hair, and a really massive house, who is also refreshingly honest. He really is full of surprises, and so far today, they’ve been good ones.
He steps back and holds a hand out towards the entranceway. ‘Come in. You didn’t have to bring anything.’
He nods to the bag I’m carrying, because even though Bram said he had plenty of ingredients, it felt wrong not to bring my own. ‘It’s bad enough that you’re letting me use your kitchen.’
‘What’s bad about it?’
‘I’m thirty-four and don’t have a kitchen of my own, Bram!’
‘That’s not bad, it’s just the way the cards fall sometimes – forgive the pun and the fact I don’t have a deck of cards on me to perform a visual representation. Life isn’t easy and sometimes it’s harder than at other times. Besides, you’re just “between kitchens” at the moment.’ He points to a mat inside the door, where his neon yellow boots are, plus a pair of muddy wellies, and a pair of trainers, wordlessly telling me to take my shoes off. ‘All bad things pass eventually. Pretty soon kitchens will be between you.’
‘That sounds remarkably uncomfortable.’ I toe my trainers off and shift them onto the mat beside his yellow boots, and look up at the high ceiling and wide hallway. I instantly see why I had to take them off. We’re in a large hall that’s decorated in shades of cream and white, with gold accents. Under my feet is fluffy cream carpet, the walls are cream and hung with gold-framed prints of geometric shapes that look like placeholder pictures when you buy an empty photo frame.
‘Kitchen’s through here. Although feel free to look around, you won’t find much mischief to get into.’
‘I’m not a mischief type, Bram.’
‘That just means you haven’t met the right people to make mischief with. Everyone’s got a five-year-old child inside just waiting to get out. It can usually be coaxed out with silly string, party poppers, or a pack of crayons.’
